Tag Archives: Boring Self-Pity

Digital Witless

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Instagram

It’s usually like this: you catch his eye, usually it’s online, maybe it’s in person, you get his attention. He sees past your currently questionable facial hair choices to the real you. Maybe he is good at texting back, though more often than not he’s not: “Sorry I’m bad at reminding you I’m interested in you wait why am I still single?” You flirt back and forth and you’re excited for when the two of you spend time together, which is frustratingly seldom because your work schedules are opposite. You’re eager to explore this because this one is local, for once you’re not FaceTiming or coordinating time zones or coming up with clever photo ideas to send him selfies. A few hours before a dinner date with him he texts you his apology and promises to stay connected. “I didn’t feel the chemistry but let’s still be friends” is nice to hear, but it’s also the sound of never hearing from someone again for the rest of your life.

Continue reading →

This Ends Badly, A Webseries

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“What? Another webseries announcement?” A few years ago I came up with the idea of pulling some of the dating horror stories from the blog and making them into an original series. It would take place in three cities! It would involve a cast of thousands! Well, then reality hit as I did the math and realized that this was a really ambitious project for my first time out of the gate. I’m still in love with the idea of How To Save Your Own Life, and it’ll always be percolating in the back of my mind until I have the resources to execute it properly.

In the meantime, I’m thrilled to present “This Ends Badly”! Continue reading →

Oh, the Places You’ll Go

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You’re in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, you are called in by a tight-lipped nurse. You sit in the examining room, look around. It’s the usual suspects: the boxes of latex gloves, the canister of cotton swabs, the paper-covered vinyl-cushioned examining table. The doctor’s assistant comes in, updates your information. She’s warm and sharp as a tack: she remembers that you live in the neighborhood, that you moved from California a few years back. She notices you haven’t had a refill for the Xanax you take to fly lately, asks if you need  more. “No,” you exhale, “I’m not flying as much anymore. That relationship ended.” Suddenly without warning David’s ghost is there in the room with the two of you, standing behind her. He never says anything, this ghost that appears sometimes, his blue eyes just stare at you. Continue reading →

Synonyms For Spring

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You do it like this: you get through the anniversaries, one at a time. Your first FaceTime date, his first trip out to Portland from Milwaukee, your first trip together to New York. Sometimes your brain plays tricks on you, you dream of an alternate universe where the two of you are still together, but it happens less and less often. He’s like an actor making appearances in your dreams that the writers are trying to write out slowly, making just cameos, then finally his contract running out.

In the meantime, you cautiously put your toe back into the dating waters. The last time was way too soon, it was a disaster and you weren’t ready yet, you took things too fast (dated pop-culture references not to say when having sex with someone for the first time: 1. “Brace for impact”  2. “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?” 3. “Autobots, ROLL OUT!”). This time you decide to take it slower. It’s funny, you muse to yourself before a beer with a handsome guy you met on Tinder, I was one of those guys who used to be like “Let’s go on a date, let’s not call it “hanging out”. Now you realize that this is all the energy you have for anyone anymore. You can’t call it a date yet. Maybe you’re waiting for the thunderclap that hit you when you first saw David in person for the first time. Maybe you’re scared you’ll never feel that again for anyone. Continue reading →

Dear BLCKSMTH: Bad Advice For Good People

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Dear BLCKSMTH: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve regretted?

Tweeting a comparison last week between the death of the baby dolphin in Argentina and the demise of my last relationship. Haha! Heh. Ugh.

Dear BLCKSMTH: You look really young for your advanced age, and you seem so full of energy! What’s your secret?

Honestly, between my day job and the writing, I don’t even know when I find time to hate myself so much! But the secret to looking young:

  1. Cry a lot, it’s nature’s “collagen injection” for the area around your eyes!  2. Get in debt  3. Rub your face in silky cat fur at least twice daily  4. Cry some more!

Dear BLCKSMTH: I’m on Scruff and I’ve noticed a guy who I would really love to get with. He’s really flirty and seems genuinely interested back, but when I see him out, he clams up, doesn’t make eye contact, and seems really awkward. What is going on? Signed, J. in Portland Continue reading →

My Own Worst Enemy

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You keep it together like this: you wake up, you get groceries, you pick up cat food for Ned from the vet. You do this all successfully without crying! You celebrate these little victories since the breakup, these small signs that you’re getting better. You get online on the dating apps (major shout out to the dudes trying to look serious and smoldering in their profile pictures, who come off looking crazy and murder-y). You look at the New York guys to see who might be available to date once you move out there, but instead you’re interrupted by a vivid mental image of every single one of them taking turns on your ex who lives there, all of them lining up for a chance at him, the line extending around the block, extending across the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan, all the men eager with hungry, mean eyes and bodies far more muscular than yours, and at the head of the line your former love’s door, occasionally opening, letting one out, letting another in, him closing the door gently like he used to with only you, and now a revolving door of sex with anyone but you. You shake your head of this image, grab your keys, head to your first therapy appointment. You have no clue what you talk to therapists about, it’s probably a bad fit because he’s not even gay and what the fuck would he know about your life. You go up to his office, greet each other, look at his walls lined with books. Maybe one of the books has the right sequence of words to make you better again, the magic incantation to make you as good as you were with David. The therapist says: “What would you like to talk about?”

You burst the fuck into tears. Continue reading →

My Brother’s Keeper, My Brother’s Killer, Part 5: The End of Everything

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Part 5 of 5. To read previous parts, click here for Part 1.

It’s the holiday season in 1991, and I’m a freshman in college. I’m coming back home to Albuquerque from spending time in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with my first boyfriend Max. I met Max’s family there, saw Star Trek 6 with him in an empty movie theater while I whispered the complicated galactic politics to him. We secretly made out whenever possible: to this day, I have a soft, nostalgic spot for the Drakkar Noir cologne he wore. We get back to our dorms on the UNM campus, and I get the call from my sister: something is wrong, come to the house right away.

I open the front door to my parents’ house, and my life is never the same after that. I see my sister’s tear-stained face, she’s in the living room with her husband Bob. My Dad is stoic but barely keeping it together while my grandmother shuffles around in her slippers, not understanding exactly what happened. My mom is wandering from room to room in the old Victorian house, incoherent, apoplectic, wailing with grief. I know then that my big brother John is dead. This is what it looks like when a family explodes from the inside out. Continue reading →

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

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I was honored to be interviewed for Matt Baume’s Sewers Of Paris podcast series. *Thrill* as I recount stories of my childhood sci-fi crushes! (I didn’t give Quantum Leap-era Scott Bakula’s legs due credit in the podcast; apologies Scott) *Wonder* as I recall formative music of my youth like Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814! *Cringe* as I audibly start crying when I talk about my ex! My gift to you is the feeling of being profoundly uncomfortable, so please click here to listen to the podcast.

Back In The Saddle

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Tears of happiness stream down your face as you think: thank you God. You are sitting across from him on his bed in his apartment in Bed-Stuy, you flew here a week after he called you and said he was sorry, that he’s had a rough time without you in his life, that he’s missed you since the breakup. You didn’t tell your friends about the call, you secretly flew out on a redeye after work one day. You went to his apartment, and after hasty greetings to his roommates (who scrammed the fuck out of there quickly), the two of you went to his bedroom and talked about everything: the expectations, the communication that was absent until it seemed too late, the pressure that social media puts on a public relationship. You find a common ground, you make commitments to mend what was missing, you hold hands, you cry together. The two of you call your families, your close friends, agree to keep it off of social media for the time being, maybe forever. Later, you hold him in your arms, you smell the familiar smell of his neck, of his hair and his sweat, and you get a full night’s sleep for the first time in almost two months. Continue reading →

Life, the Universe, and Everything

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Do this, exactly: Wake up on your forty-first birthday in 2014 on Thanksgiving, and finally feel happy, feel ready for what’s next. Realize that although there’s a lot you have in common, break up with a very sweet man who you’ve been seeing for a few months. Hunker down and make some fun art, take some silly pictures, spend Christmas in a snowless Portland winter. Spend time with friends, miss your family who you can’t see very often around the holidays because of your day job. Continue reading →

How It Ends.

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The text appears mid-afternoon, when you’re at work: “Hey, can we talk?” You go home in a daze, set your things down, lift the phone to your ear when it rings. He says words, you say words back, hang up. Just like that, it’s done: you woke up this morning in love with a man you’d loved for almost a year, whose family you had met, a man you thought you would have a long future with, and tonight you will go to bed no longer in love with him, you will go to bed alone. This is how things end. Continue reading →

Love In The Age Of Scruff, Part 3

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Instagram

Disclaimer: I don’t consider it particularly noble or funny anymore to post photos of screenshots of private conversations on dating apps. Nevertheless, this series of posts strikes a chord in a lot of people, so I have kept the screenshots in.

You know the old story: boy breaks up with boy. Boy, single, downloads a dating app at the suggestion of his ex. Boy stays single for three years but at least get a lot of writing material out of being single, writes a lot about simultaneously pooping and sexting. Boy meets boy on the app. Boy invites boy to visit, and boys fall in love and start a relationship. Boys discuss deleting app, but then boys do something unexpected: they stay on the app. Continue reading →

Deliver Us

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Day 1: You’re at your job, and flying out to see your mom in San Antonio the next morning, something that you’re little nervous about. Not because it’s your mom and you have a complicated relationship with her, but because it’s flying during the day. You prefer red-eye flights because a few years ago, flying through the Rockies, you and an airplane full of strangers experienced the worst turbulence you ever had in your collective lives, and after that you refused to board a plane for a few years. You could only go as far as you could drive or take a train, so your traveling circle was pretty myopic. You eventually had to travel for work, so you went to a doctor, described your fear in tangible physiological terms, got prescribed what you now laughingly describe as horse tranquilizers. They were way too powerful for casual travel, so you’ve since downgraded to Xanax, which helps you sleep on red-eye flights, but again, this is different. This will be a daytime flight, you probably won’t be asleep. Ugh. Continue reading →

How To Get Your Ass Kicked

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I’m getting off the A train in Brooklyn around Hoyt, and I look back to see if David is following nearby (he is). He’s wearing a bright teal t-shirt, and I’m wearing my short shorts with a white and blue striped pullover, so naturally we fit in among the sea of navy and black bustling around us. “Why are you walking so fast?” he asks, probably in Italian or German. He’s obsessed with learning and speaking other languages. I’m obsessed with frustrating him to tears by pretending I don’t understand or can’t hear him. “Because New York” I say, and he silently nods his understanding.

I look behind me again to see if the G we’re connecting with stops here or further down the platform. The G’s I’ve been on so far are frustratingly tiny for the amount of riders in this part of Brooklyn, so much so that it’s sometimes just two cars. It wouldn’t surprise me if the MTA reduced service to just a Little Tykes train that holds a few toddlers, running over the rats along its route with its plastic tires. Ok, yes, the G stops further down. I start to turn around when I notice a guy in a pristine white t-shirt and basketball shorts gesturing at me. I think at me? I’m not sure. Until he shouts “Yeah, you!” Continue reading →

Fight Or Flight, Part 2

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Part Two of Three. Read Part One here. First published in PQMonthly.

When I woke up that morning, getting into a physical altercation with a bigot was the last thing I thought I would be doing. I had been minding my own business, puttering around my house, when the word “faggot” came through my open windows on that hot day. It was barked in a harsh male baritone in the context of a conversation, and then it was repeated again. It had startled me so much to hear that ugly word in my own space, in the last place I would expect to hear that word of hate, that I had spontaneously stood up from a sitting position in the middle of my living room. I stood there for a minute, let the feelings wash over me. Continue reading →

Laugh In My Face

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I’m usually super dead inside, but I was thrilled when Hello Mr magazine and the Ace Hotel in Portland invited me to tell the tale of my worst date ever. It’ll be this Sunday, June 14th, 5 to 8pm at the Ace. There will be a DJ! There will be cocktails! There will be an opportunity to heckle me, laugh in my dumb, dumb face! There may never be a better chance to mock me before my slow, sad fade into obscurity. See you there! (Click here for event details)

Lemonade

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As with most mornings on my days off, it’s a slow roll to wake up this particular morning. I sleepily smile at the text from my boyfriend, reply to it. I pet my perpetually hungry cat, Ned. I browse Facebook for a couple minutes, watch the new Star Wars trailer, realize that Darth Vader’s helmet kinda always looks like the “gritted teeth” emoji. A friend on Facebook has lost a loved one, and I almost comment on the post but decide not to. I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m even sorrier for all the notifications I’ll get if I comment on your post.

Then I check the dashboard for my shitty-ass blog. Oh great, I think, rolling my eyes, Chad’s back.

I started this blog a few years ago to chronicle my experience leaving my job for a year to have an “artistic sabbatical”. Halfway through that year, I had a rough time of it and suddenly the writing got more personal. I knew then that I was making a choice to put my ramblings out into the public domain, and I also knew well enough from Reddit message boards that not everyone would be kind. Take the above comment, posted at 1:04 am to my recent piece about transparency and honesty. Chad’s clearly trying to bring “tool” back. The overall message in my piece wasn’t very controversial, just an affirmation that it’s better to be open than not. But Chad’s had it in for me for awhile: Continue reading →

See Right Through You: The Case For Transparency

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First published in PQMonthly

Walking down Broadway, I shuffled along, staring at the sidewalk and musing on the possible titles of my inevitable, boring memoir: “My Cat Is The Handsomest: Thoughts On Dying Alone By Michael James Schneider.” “Sir, You Can’t Take A Bottle Of Lube That Large On An Airplane, A Long-Distance Love Story By Michael James Schneider”. “What It Looks Like When The Universe Poops On Your Life: How To Get It All Wrong, by Michael James Schneider”. I looked up just in time to realize that A) I was at a bottleneck in the sidewalk, between a cafe table and a tree, and B) a guy who was Dreamy As Fuck was also trying to get through the narrow path from the other side.

I stopped, made an embarrassed gesture to let him through. He, however, did the same. No, no, my next gesture said, my hand sweeping magnanimously, Please, after you, I insist. And there we stood for a good 20 minutes, each trying to be the Beta dog in this classic West Coast Standoff of politeness, each trying not to bare our teeth or make eye contact lest the other one attack.

On the surface, the PNW is a friendly, polite place to live. What happens when you look under that surface, though? Is politeness a form of dishonesty and artifice, and if so, what does it take to live a transparent life? Continue reading →

Cheat Code: Leveling Up on Dating Apps

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First appeared in PQMonthly

There he is, that writer, on his day off from his day job. Tall, lanky as fuck, wandering from room to room in his apartment in NE Portland with a coffee cup in hand. He stops to pet his cat, then checks his phone. A notification from Tinder, a dating app for boring people. A new match! His thumb hovers above the screen of his mint-condition iPhone 3GS. “What is happening here?” he thinks. Ignores the notification. Life goes on.

A day later, he’s on Scruff, a dating app for guys who want more Instagram followers. A few guys “woof” at him, he gets on the Global View front page, he feels good about himself. Then he wonders why, what kind of validation he’s getting from this. Continue reading →

Faraway, So Close

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First appeared, in edited form, in PQ Monthly.

Outline for a piece about long-distance courtship.

Told in third person. Main person is Mike, hopeless romantic, late 30s to early 40s, been in long-term relationships most of his life. Been insulated from realities of dating and being single until two years ago, he calls the phenomena of feeling like a fish out of water the “Single Gay Time Traveler” effect.

He reluctantly gets on a hookup app (that he charmingly calls a “dating app”). Which one? Should it be Grindr, or Growlr, or Scruff? Let’s make it Scruff. For a while it’s a secret, he won’t tell his friends about being on the app. He’s also kind of judgey when confronted with “sluttiness” and explicit pics (this could be a character arc for Mike, going from a place of almost prudishness, to eventually embracing his sexuality). Continue reading →

1973

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This is how it happens: you turn 40, in the fall of 2013. You write a cute post about turning 40, about hitting parked cars and falling down for no reason. It’s funny, but inside you’re actually still a little sad. You realize the earth is spinning through the same space it was a year earlier and it’s the exact time of year he told you no. You still think about him sometimes, but then you realize that he probably doesn’t think about you since the three manifesto-length texts you sent him probably forever sealed in his mind that you’re a creeper. You thought your 40th birthday would be a blowout, but it’s the opposite: friends can’t travel around Thanksgiving except to their families, the timing is off. You have a quiet drink with a friend at a bar you now don’t even remember. You realize you’re in for a long winter, or what you later call “Olive Garden’s Endless Heartbreak.” Continue reading →

The Crab-Free Diet

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First published in PQMonthly.

He stands there in my doorway, not coming in. His hand is holding his bike up that he rode over on, also halfway through the threshold. Carl mutters something, small talk: “Hey. How did you sleep last night?”

“Like a log,” I say, and then add “A drunk, crying log.” He doesn’t react, he just looks down at his feet. “Come all the way in, will you?” I ask, now annoyed. Everything’s been going great with Carl, we’ve been dating a couple of months now, so this is about the time for something to get completely and irrevocably fucked up. I look at my watch: yup, it’s Breakup O’Clock! Continue reading →

The 30-Day Dating Cleanse

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“App Soup”, photo by Jeff Howard, digital by Tucker Cullinan
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Inevitably, the text came a couple of days after the second date, like it seems to a lot lately: “Sorry, just no sparks. Let’s be friends!” This one smarted a bit. Handsome, great tech job that he was good at, seemed a bit old-fashioned, and we didn’t meet on an app. On the one hand, I loved the honesty, but on the other hand, it was maybe just one too many rejections in too short a time, and this was a guy I was crossing my fingers for.

Time to take a break, I thought, so I did what any self-respecting single person would do: I went on a cleanse. A 30-day dating cleanse. Since I was inventing it as I went along, what were the ground rules? Okay, #1: No sex. Duh. #2: Nothing “datey”, no dinners or meals. Not even going to have a drink or beers. #3: Yes, I can use apps to say hello and chat, but no dates goddamnit.

Day 1. Hey, this isn’t too bad. I’m busy with my day job, and I have a writing deadline to make, so I can concentrate on that. Famous last words!

Day 2. Oh. Hey. Holy crap, a hot paramedic on Sruff who’s into sci-fi movies. Dave Eggers is his favorite author and he describes his beard as “post-ironic”. He has really nice legs. Okay, just one date? Continue reading →

Monogamy Is Dead! Long Live Monogamy!

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"Three's Company" (from l. to r. ick Fauble, Michael James Schneider, Cesar Marquez) .ig-b- { display: inline-block; } .ig-b- img { visibility: hidden; } .ig-b-:hover { background-position: 0 -60px; } .ig-b-:active { background-position: 0 -120px; } .ig-b-v-24 { width: 137px; height: 24px; background: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24.png) no-repeat 0 0; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 / 1), only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and (min-resolution: 2dppx) { .ig-b-v-24 { background-image: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24@2x.png); background-size: 160px 178px; } }

“Three’s Company” (from l. to r. Nick Fauble, Michael James Schneider, Cesar Marquez)
Instagram

First appeared in PQMonthly

You know the scene: Kirk and Spock face insurmountable odds against a supercomputer, or evil androids, or an alien with a twisted morality. Then Kirk, in his swaggering wisdom, asks the computer a question that shouldn’t have an answer, or commands his bridge crew to do an illogical performance that will confound the androids. The computer halts, the android freezes while doing “the robot”, and our noble crew takes advantage of the confusion to make their escape while they leave behind a flustered mess of smoking, charred circuitry.

This is the scene in my head after I asked him, “Hey, are we exclusive?” I expected him to say “nah, but maybe later” or “sure thing”, but instead he threw me a curveball. Rich looked at me with his baby blue eyes and said “Sure, for now. I’ll want to open it up later though.” What? Didn’t I cover this base when I read his dating profile? “Um, when does that happen exactly?” I asked tentatively. “When we have a strong enough emotional connection.” “Oh yeah. Sure. Of course”, I stammer as my brain literally starts melting from the seeming logic problem that it’s confronting. Continue reading →